Sig 229 Kydex Holster

So I finally decided that after making numerous mag holders for myself and my dad it was time to make my own holster for my Sig 229 9mm.   I have tried this before my using "the sandwich" method.  This is sandwiching the gun between two pieces of kydex.  This however did not work so well.  When I was finished with it and put it on my belt I could not get it out of the holster.  So, this time I thought I would try my luck at wrapping the kydex around the gun "the fold".  I looked around at many different holsters to get some ideas on what I wanted to do.  After lots of ideas I gave it a try.  Below is the steps that I used to create my holster.

The first thing that I needed to do was to prep my gun to make the mold.  Since I was doing the fold method I needed to maintain the front site post down the length of the gun.  To do this I used a wooden dowel that I had laying around and taped it to the top of the gun.

Next I had to figure out how I was going to attach the holster on my gun belt.  I decided to take the belt clip off of my BlackHawk holster.  Since I was going to use this belt attachment I had to figure out how I was going to attach the holster to the clip.  I needed to figure out some way to indent the attachment point inside the holster in order to not scratch the gun.  I found some furniture leveling sticky pads that I thought would work.  I cut them into circles and stuck them to the side of the gun in the same pattern as the belt clip.

I was now making some progress.  I also wanted to put a tension screw behind the trigger guard.  In order to do this I need to create a block out so that when I molded the kydex I would have a void in this location.  I took some wood scraps from the garage and created the shape that I needed and attached it to the bottom of the trigger guard.

Now I had everything ready to start the molding process.  I cut out a piece of kydex big enough to fold over my gun.  I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and put the piece of kydex on a cooking sheet (don't tell my wife) for about 5 mins.  Quickly moving it to the press I folded it over the gun and set it in the press.  Once I took it out of the press I had a perfect mold of my gun.

Notice the 3 protruding circles in the picture on the left.  This will be were I would attach the belt clip.  Those little furniture stickies worked great.  You can also see the block out below the trigger guard where the tension screw will be.

Now that the mold was done it was time to start cutting the kydex into the shape that I wanted.  I knew that I wanted to leave the backside of the holster tall, so it rest against my side. 



Once I had the general shape that I wanted I needed to check the fit to make the final adjustments.

Now I had to drill the holes to attach the belt clip.  I needed to lay the belt clip out on the back side of the holster to make sure that the holes in the correction location in order to fit properly.  Once the holes were drilled I attached the belt clip and noticed that I needed to add a couple of washers to the back side of the holster to get it to sit right on my hip.

Next I needed to add a rivet to the bottom left of the holster to keep it the kydex from separating.

The only thing left to do now was to install the tension screw at the bottom of the trigger guard and tighten it up.

So it is all finished up now and it works great.  I can't wait to take it to the range and test it out.

GoPro Camera Test

The other day at the range my buddy brought his GoPro camera to test out.  He had this head mountable attachement for the camera so we decided to give it a try.  Not real exciting, but a successfull test non the less.  Enjoy the comentary.

CLICK THE LINK BELOW

GoPro Test at Range

Kydex Revolver Speedloader Pouches

A couple of months ago I made some Kydex mag pouches for my Dad's 9mm pistol.  When he got the pouches he took them to his next action pistol match and he loved them.  Since those worked so well for him he asked my to make some pouches for his revolver speed loaders.  So he sent me his speed loader and I got to work.

I wanted to let you know the step by step of what I did to make these kydex pouches.  The first place that I needed to start was coming up with the best way to make the pouches.  I came up with a couple of different ideas and tried them out.  Eventually I came up with what I think is the best way to go about it and started making templates to fill my Dad's order.

I took my template and traced it out on a piece of kydex and tried to minimize the waste. Once I had my pieces marked out on the kydex it was time to cut them out.  Dad wanted 8 of these pouches so I took a little bit to cut them all out.

The next step was to use the dremmel to shape the pieces so that the were all fairly close to the same size.  Using the dremmel I shaped the corners and areas where the folders were to occur.

 

Next I used a piece of wood to help me shape the bottom fold.

 

Now that the bottom was shaped it was time to wrap the arm around to hold the speed loader.  I used a pieces of 1" PVC that I had laying around the garage.  This was the perfect size because it is just a little smaller than the diameter of the speed loader, which gave me the tension that I needed to keep it secure.  It was also a round shape, which made molding the shape easy.

Now all that was left to do was to make the fold the material to make the belt loop.  Again I found a piece of wood lying around that was the same size as my Dad's speedbelt.

The last step was to take the dremmel out and trim the bottom pieces so that it fits the rounded shape of the pouch while the speed loader is in it.

So now I just had to repeat the process to make all 8 pouches.

Here is a video clip all the pouches on my speed belt and how the speed loaders go in and out of the pouches.  

HOPE YOU ENJOY THEM DAD!